Addressing the issues of representation and constructions of gender in media, literature, art, language and popular culture, and examine the contradictions and expectations associated with doing gender.

Role of human behavior towards gender representation and constructions Student name School name Introduction Gender in most cases refers to the basic category that is used to sort human beings. The concept of gender assumes the essential elements of our own identities, and the identities that we assume other people to have. It defines of what it means to be a male or a female. People grow up with gender awareness of what constitutes the characteristics of a certain gender. It is these characteristics that people attach to each other that define the magnitude of gender in the society. The perception and attitudes that people attach to each other largely contributes to the gender representation and constructions in the society. Representations and constructions of gender have led to the emergence of a number of issues that are of concern to the society. The most common areas in our society where gender representations and constructions are displayed are the media, literature, art, language, and culture. The media Different media coverage has largely contributed to the representations and constructions of gender. Newspapers, journals, televisions, and radio have portrayed some form of gender representations in their reporting. The coverage has in most cases linked different gender with certain characteristics. In our contemporary world, media messages have been dominated by the information of goods and products. The information of the goods and services is passed though advertisements. The advertisements in the media are often associated with images that have an impact on representations and constructions of gender. Advertisement and its role in gender representations and constructions The images that are displayed in the advertisement always have some meanings. It has a significant impact on gender identity. The commercials that are used in the advertisements often use images and representations of women and men. The images of men and women are use as a means of strategy to attract the attention of consumers. The gender displays in the advertisement commercial are easily recognized by the society hence they influence the image system in human beings. The images also strike at our individual identity and how we understand ourselves as either male or female. The advertisement images, however, should not be recognized as the actual reflections of human gender. For example, women in most of the advertisement portraits are displayed along the lines of sexuality. This can be a source of gender interpretations to the audience of the advertisement leading to the representations of gender. Many of the advertisement campaign have used the strategy of sexuality in their advertisements. This has lead to the distortion of human beings image system. Media statements Some of the statements that are made in various media coverage can influence our images towards gender representations. The statements made by leaders are usually given a priority in the majority of media coverage. Some of the statements made can affect our perceptions towards a certain gender It can make us think negatively or positively on a given gender on the society. The statements might portray a gender in negative or positive way. For example, John Lennon said “women are the niggers of the world.”. Reporting such messages in various media channel will have a significant impact on the representations of gender among the readers of the article. Gender representations in art The area of art has provided an avenue of representations and construction of gender. Several artists have used gender in passing of different information to the society. The images that the artists attach to gender had a significant impact to the perception and attitudes of our behavior towards the other gender. Music is one the areas where there has been significant gender representations and construction. Several musicians have used their various musical contents to portray some gender elements to the community. The elements portrayed by musicians have really influenced the perception of our image towards gender. Gender stereotype are popular the music scene and rap music has been identified as one of the platforms that have contributed to representation and construction of gender to a large extent. Various artists of rap music artists have proved to be misogynistic in their music. They have portrayed women negatively in contents of their music. In most of the music, women have been portrayed as inferior to men. They have also been trivialized and marginalized in the songs. The messages in the music display the notion that women are not equal to men. They regard men as superior to women in society. It is also of great concern that the artist who conveys negative images towards women has been rewarded for their songs. This can explains the reason for gender stereotypes in music. There are some images that are attached to either female or male people in the society. The images that we attach to any given gender can have an influence in the gender representation in our society. Some of the predominant images that are associated with women are sex objects, earth mothers, women as invisible, weaker sex, and objects of love. Impact of literature towards gender representations Several books, journals, and articles have portrayed men and women in different ways. Men and women have been identified by specific roles in the community. Most of the literature has associated men with masculinity while women have been associated with femininity. The roles that have been associated with men and women in the society have lead to the representation of gender in our society. For example, in most instances women have been entrusted with the role of bringing up children. They have also been associated with the role of cooking for and taking care of the family. Our gender perception of men and women are determined by the images that we construct from the masculinity or femininity. In most society throughout the world, men are regarded as the head of the family. Children will grow with the perception that men are the head of their families. Then perceptions, experience, and images that are attached to gender are having real effects on gender representations. We always select some specific features when defining women while we ignore other elements. For example, people will associate certain gender with a particular shape. Women are associated with round hips, while in the real sense not all women have round hips. It is also true that both sexes can have round hips. In some places women are considered as the group of people who wear make ups and skirts. Women also in some cultural settings are described as the weak sex while men are port...